Brown Eyes
by Susan Landon

When you smiled,
the edges of your cheeks
dissolving
into a thousand wrinkles
and your wide brown eyes
reflecting the sun,
I wanted to hug you
there in the square
before the whole world
as if no one,
no thing but you
ever existed.


Warranty
by Ann Reisfeld Boutte

Side by side we perform a
routine, tedious task.
Updating the warranty file,
discarding the old,
inserting the new.
Not very sexy, and yet. . .

Sifting through slips of paper,
day-to-day unspoken promises
to be there, whatever,
regardless, despite,
for two years, ten years,
twenty years more,
till we wear out and expire.

For sheer romance,
soft music and candlelight
can't touch it.